


Awakening and Realization

by noah_shite



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, One Shot, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Short One Shot, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, idk just a lot of steve tags, it's a short steve one-shot to I'm not surprised
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24247873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noah_shite/pseuds/noah_shite
Summary: Steve slept for seventy years, that takes its toll on a person.Takes place after Captain America: The First Avenger
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter & Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 13





	Awakening and Realization

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't my first work, but this is my first story to post on here, so just like let me know what you like and what I could do better, thanks dudes  
> \- Noah

As Steve fell into the ice, he didn't have many regrets. He had fought in the war. He'd done his part and then some to defeat the Nazis. And he'd said goodbye to Peggy and though it was sad and short, he was still happy with the time they had had.  
He did have one regret though, and that's that he never got to say goodbye to Bucky. Buck. James Buchanan Bares. His lifelong friend, maybe more. He still felt guilt over what happened, but he decided as the slab of ice got closer and closer that he wouldn't focus on that. What he would think about was how, while he was leaving Peggy behind, he was on his way to Bucky, and he felt content knowing that he took his final blow after taking down the head of Hydra. He felt ready to leave, to see Bucky again.

Then happened the impossible, the unthinkable, what he least expected. And it tore him in half.  
He woke up.  
He opened his eyes and saw a ceiling above him. The bed beneath him. The room around him. So perfectly normal. So unnaturally natural. When he learned that he wasn't dead, he felt split. He was ready, he was content, and he feels robbed of that. Robbed of Bucky.  
But this meant he got more time with Peggy. He got a chance to have a full life with Peggy, and he could never complain about that.  
That split him in two, but what shredded him into infinitely tiny pieces that barely existed anymore, that could never be put back together no matter how much time dedicated to it, was when he found out that he hadn't been in the ice for a day, not a week, not month, not even twelve months. No, he had been in the ice for 70 years. He had missed out on seventy years of the world revolving and evolving without him. He didn't feel torn, not even shredded anymore, he felt burned. Turned into ash,not only was he in a million different pieces, but the pieces weren't of him anymore. They were ash, nothing more. He was a pile of nothing, and would never be anything else.  
Seventy years meant he had left Peggy in the past. He had left Bucky dead, alone. Not only was his death taken away from him, but his life, his old life, the only one he's ever known had been ripped out from underneath him flat on his ass. Unable and unwilling to get back up.  
He was alone now. He was alone in an unfamiliar land that was familiar at the same time in the cruelest ways. He didn't know what to do, but he knew he couldn't do it. Not without Bucky, not without Peggy by his side the whole way. 

He couldn't do his, he just couldn't.


End file.
